learning "to labor and to wait." He is doing the waiting at present. The labor will commence as election time approaches.-Detroit Free Press (Dem.).

WITH Scott as the Democratic candidate in 1888, and Stanford as the Republican one, as people with fondness for barrels have suggested on both sides, the practical politicians would laugh and grow fat, while the Nation could probably select some other man who would suit it.—Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.).

THE Kennebec, Me., Journal notes Hon. W. W. Doherty's signed editorial in last Sunday's Globe as "earnest and strong," and thinks it is one of the "many indications which have appeared of the strength of Mr. Blaine among the able and leading minds in the Republican party.”—Boston Globe (Dem.).

IT was the Prohibition vote of New York that defeated Blaine for the Presiidency, or at least among many causes of his defeat, this was by far the most poThe present outlook in that State is not favorable to the return of the Prohibitionists to the Republican party.- Portland Oregonian (Ind.).

tent.

It will occur to every politician that Mr. Blaine, who is coming forward for the Republican nomination, would make considerable play upon any ill success of the administration to secure such treatment of American fishermen as would look fair and right. Galveston News (Dem.).

THE next President of the United States will be George W. Childs of Philadelphia if he will accept the nomination. The party which brings him forward will make sure of success for itself, and secure for the country a good President.— Baltimore News (Ind.).

MR. BLAINE is one of the few surviving persons who think that the office should seek the man, and the Tribune will testify that whenever Mr. Blaine hears of an office out looking for a man, he always goes off and hides until the office goes by. -Nashville American.

BROTHER BLAINE is about the only American statesman of the biggest size who has deliberately and fearlessly committed himself in public to the policy of annexing Canada-that is to say, as soon as it can be done peaceably.-New York Sun (Dem.).

WHEN Mr. Cleveland was a candidate the first time he said he should not want a second term. But that was before he decided to take a partner into the firm. Perhaps Mrs. Cleveland will want a term her own self.—Toledo Commercial (Rep.). ALL the Blaine strings are being pulled; and not at all either, "for Jim Blaine, he of Maine," is a very resourceful man, and wakes up every morning with a new idea, and a plan for working upon the public mind.—Dayton Journal (Rep.).

A WASHINGTON correspondent claims to know a United States Senator who does not wish to be President, but prudently withholds his name, probably from fear of contradiction. Perhaps it is Riddleberger.-Troy Telegram (Rep.).

THE name of James G. Blaine, whenever it is spoken, thrills the people of the country as that of an old sweetheart_thrills a woman who, in spite, has married another man and doesn't like him.—Leavenworth, Kas., Times (Rep.).

THE Hon. John Alexander Logan is preparing to make a bold movement this summer against Mr. Blaine's Presidential fences on the Pacific slope. He expects to find the rails somewhat worm-eaten.-Buffalo Courier (Dem.).

THE political prophet who counts Mr. Blaine out of the field, either as a candidate or as the maker of a candidate for the Presidency in 1888, will be sure to make a fatal mistake in bis calculations.— Providence Star (Ind.).

ROSCOE CONKLING says "the smallest country newspaper is worth more to its subscribers in one month than its price for a year." For President of the United States, Roscoe Conkling, of Utica.— Vineyard Gazette (Ind.).

We do not believe that very much will come of the talk of Hayes for President, but would respectfully warn the pine-tree statesmen to keep his weather eye on the gentleman from Ohio.-Cleveland Plain-Dealer (Dem.).

HAVING failed to enlarge the Army Senator Logan wants to magnify the pension list. He is bound to make a showing somewhere, but never again as a tail to the Blaine kite.-Illinois State Register (Dem.).

Now that Logan has written a book and an arbitration bill, too, it is hard to see how anybody else can have the nerve to ask for a Presidential nomination.-Philadelphia Times (Ind.).

THE greater number of the Northern Blaine organs prefer continuing the old war against Jeff Davis rather than beginning a new war with Canada.-Milwaukee Journal (Dem.).

WITH all the Republican candidates on the stump in Maine this fall, it will be a sort of competitive examination for the Presidential nomination.-Portland Advertiser (Rep.).

SENATOR LOGAN will visit the Pacific coast in July, not necessarily for pleasure but as a guaranty of good faith in his Presidential aspirations.-Chicago Herald (Ind.).

THE sharpest sarcasm on Cleveland's greatness is the candidacy of Governor Hill, of New York, for the Presidency.-Cin. Commercial-Gazette (Rep.).

If we can not defeat Blaine or any Republican candidate in 1888 without the Mugwumps, bring on the Mugwumps.-Kansas City Times (Dem.).

Mr. BLAINE stands in with capital and monopoly, and has no sympathy with the honest toilers of the land.-Atlanta Constitution.

THERE is a barrel of codfish bait attached to the Blaine boom to buoy it.-Florida Times-Union (Dem.).

IN 1888 Logan will not sound his slogan to any second-fiddle accompaniment.—— Newark News (Dem.).

MR. HILL has now two Democrats to defeat-Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland.--Kansas City Times (Dem.).

PROHIBITION.

A STATE Conference of "Anti-Saloon" Republicans and a separate and distinct State Convention of Prohibitionists were held at Trenton, N. J., last week, and their deliberations have attracted general attention, as indicated by the press comments here collated.

Newark Evening News (Dem.), May 29.

THE News has a deep respect for that class of the public who believe in temperance. The News believes that a greater part of the community is in sympathy with the temperance movement. But temperance and prohibition are widely different ideas; the temperance people are willing to grant respectability to many who don't believe as they do. The Prohibitionists are not. If the platform adopted by the New Jersey State Prohibition party expresses the convictions of all prohibitionists, no hesitancy is had here in the expression of the opinion that the progress of the movement is going to be decidedly slow. The declaration touching the subject of prohibition is in these words:

That it is good law, reason and logic, that all who aid, abet, procure, hire, counsel, or in any way assist in the commission of a crime are guilty of the crime, though not present at the commission thereof, and therefore we affirm that all who license, or in any way favor the continuance of this traffic, and all legislatures which license, and all political parties which favor license, and all men who vote for parties which license, or for parties which will not declare for prohibition (where there is a Prohibition party), do make themselves accessory to the liquor crime and equally guilt with the man who carries on the traffic.

It was the mind of a zealot that conceived this idea; it was unwise for the convention to have adopted it. It is an expression of intolerance of the views of others, and condemns as criminals all society not embraced in the little circle, constituting what is known as the New Jersey State Prohibition Society. It is almost as striking as the declaration of the saint party :

Resolved, The Earth was made for the Saints. Resolved, We are the Saints.

The way for the Prohibitionists to gather strength and respect is through the channels of reason and tolerance. The way not to do it is to denounce as bad all people, good, bad and indifferent, who do not swallow the entire Prohibition platform. The candidates nominated by the convention are better than the platform. Gen. Fiske is an able and good man.

Brooklyn Times (Rep.), May 29.

THE Democratic newspapers imbibe lots of comfort from the fact that the Prohibitionists have placed a full State ticket in the field in New Jersey. They know that the Prohibitionists have not the ghost of a chance of carrying the State, but they know also that of the 187,000 votes cast in the State last fall, 9,013 were votes drawn from the Republican ticket for Prohibition candidates, and they feel sanguine that in a close State like New Jersey such a proportion is enough to give them a safe tenure of the State government. The Democrats are fond of accusing the Republicans of "coddling" the temperance vote, but there never has been on the Republican side any such temperance coddling as the Democrats have openly and secretly practiced during the past two or three years-openly in their attempts to persuade temperance voters that the Republicans are trying to hoodwink and deceive them, and secretly by using their campaign funds to keep Prohibition candidates in the field. If the honest temperance men would rid their minds of all abstractions and look at this matter from a common-sense standpoint, they could not mistake the course that is wisest and most politic. Parties are not abstractions; they are simply combinations of citizens who have certain ends in view and are united in the effort to make their principles supreme. The Republican party is not a prohibition party. It will become a prohibition party, not by any process of bulldozing, but just as soon as the majority of its members become honestly convinced that prohibition is the best policy for the State.

New York Tribune (Rep.), May 30.

New York Times (Ind), May 29.

Philadelphia Record (Ind.), May 29.

A REPUBLICAN convention, or rather a conference of Republican leaders, which met in Trenton heroically resolved that the party could do without "saloon influence" in the future elections of that State. The conference further resolved that the Republicans of New Jersey are in favor of submitting a prohibitory amendment to a vote of the people. The nomination of General Clinton B. Fiske for Governor by the New Jersey prohibitionists enables the Republicans of that State to square their practice with their professions. As General Fiske has always been a Republican with a prohibition attachment, they would make no sacrifice by supporting him. In this way the embarrassment of a third party and a third candidate for governor would be avoided.

N. Y. Mail and Express (Rep.), May 28.

As the Mail and Express three or four years ago arrived at the conclusion reached by the New Jersey conference and warned Republicans that the temperance issues had "come to stay" and were daily becoming more and more vital and commanding, we have had no hesitation about welcoming every Republican movement that confirms and justifies our own deliberate convictions. And we are gratified to find so many representative Republican journals coming forward in more or less emphatic recognition of the fact that the time has come for the party, as such, to take ground against "the saloon" and in favor of all practical measures of temperance reform.

Albany Evening Journal (Rep.), May 28.

UNLESS the liquor question is honestly met in New Jersey the prohibition vote will continue to increase and will put it out of the power of the Republican party to carry the State. The most superficial observer of politics in New York State knows that the same condition of affairs exists here. The general statement, we believe, cannot be disputed that a prohibition vote of 30,000 in New York State will prevent the Republican party from carrying the State for years to come, unless a political earthquake shall change the face of things.

New York World (Dem.), May 29.

It is now certain that this issue of prohibition, based on an honest if mistaken sentiment, will be maintained by its devotees against all political parties until, like the anti-slavery agitation, it builds itself into a power that can command respect. It will no longer allow itself to be cajoled by Republican politicians whom it has helped to so many victories, for it now feels that its own hopes for the future must be based upon the destruction of the organization that has affiliated with it only to betray it and to use it for its own selfish purposes.

St. Albans, Vt., Messenger (Rep.), May 29.

FOLLOWING close on the rights of the franchise comes this question of temperance which seeks recognition and cannot be turned aside. The country is moving forward at lengthened pace in its temperance sentiment, and in opposition to the curse of strong drink. There is nothing to fear; real reforms do not go backward, and temperance is one of them. America is improving, and the signs of the times indicate that at no remote day temperance will become the settled policy and practice of the United States.

THE platform laid down at the Trenton conference is one upon which all temperance people can take their stand. It does not claim that a panacea of universal application has been found for the evils of intemperance and then proceed to excommunicate those who refuse to subscribe to the remedy. A more feasible and humane course is adopted.

MISCELLANEOUS.

WEDDINGS IN THE WHITE HOUSE. A NUMBER OF PERSONS MARRIED THERE.Eighty six years ago the coming November Abigail Adams became the "Lady of the White House," and was the first to inaugurate domestic life there. It was hardly a habitable dwelling then, and few festivities occurred there in her day-none, in fact, of any importance, save the New Year's receptions. In Jefferson's time no other entertainments were given than public receptions, and it was not until the genial" Dolly" Madison became mistress of the White House that it was made a social head center. One wedding occurred while she was hostess there. In 1811 her niece, Miss Todd, a Quaker girl, of Philadelphia, was married to Congressman Jackson of Virginia. Mr. Jackson was the great-uncle of the famous "Stonewall" Jackson of Confederate fame. The wedding was a quiet affair, conducted in deference to the simple tastes of the bride in private fashion. A reception followed, which was attended by the members of Congress without exception, and by all the Washington officials. The next marriage that occurred in the White House was that of Marie Monroe, the youngest daughter of President Monroe, to her cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur, of New York. It was a private affair, but not so exclusive as President Cleveland's. The wedding occurred (in March, 1820,) in the East Room, and the bridesmaids, the family relations on both sides, and the old friends of the bride and groom witnessed the ceremony. A week later the bridesmaids and their attendants assisted at a public reception given in their honor by the President. From "The Ladies of the White House" it is learned that "at this reception Mrs. Gouverneur presided in the place of her mother, and was formally introduced to all the guests present. The President and Mrs. Monroe mingled with the company, and left the bridal couple to do the duties of host and hostess. Commodore Decatur gave the young couple a largely-attended ball shortly after the White House reception. The son of President John Adams, John Quincy Adams, was married to his cousin, Miss Helen Adams, in 1826. This wedding was a private one on account of the delicate health of Mrs. Adams. During President Jackson's term of office the marriage of Miss Lewis, a daughter of the President's old friend and neighbor, Major Lewis, of Nashville, was married to Monsieur Pageot, a gentleman whom she had met abroad while her father was a foreign ininister. The adopted son of President Jackson, Andrew Jackson, Jr., married Miss Sarah Yorke, of Philadelphia, and took her to the White House as a bride. She resided there for some months, and had much social attention paid her. Another bride who held her wedding reception in the White House was Mrs. Van Buren, the wife of President Van Buren's eldest son and private secretary. She was Miss Angelica Singleton, of Sumter, S. C. She received with the President at his New Year's reception on January 1, 1838. The fact is noted in the history of the White House "that thus far in the history of the country Mrs. Van Buren was the only daughter of South Carolina who has been a hostess of the White House." The only President who married during his term of office was John Tyler, the tenth Executive. His first wife, the mother of a large family of children, died in 1842, when he had been in office a year and six months. He was married in less than two years to Miss Julia Gardner Tyler in New York, and took his bride immediately to the White House, where a grand reception was held in her honor. This affair created great social excitement throughout the United States. Previous to his second marriage the third daughter of President Tyler, Elizabeth, was married to William Waller, of Williamsburgh, Va., in the East Room, January 1, 1812. The wedding was a large one, it being found impossible to have it quiet and private under the circumstances. The notable guests included Mrs. Madison, the members of the Cabinet, one of whom was Daniel Webster, the foreign ministers, the large family relationship, and personal friends. The most-talked of wedding that ever occurred in the White House was that of Nellie Grant, the only daughter of President Grant. This marriage took place in the famous East Room, May 21, 1874, the groom being Mr. Algernon Sartoris, of Hampshire, England. He was 23 and the bride only 19. "The wedding," to quote the. White House historian again, "was the finest ever known in Washington, and was the theme of newspaper comment both in this country and Europe. All that affection, wealth, and high social position could devise were combined to make it an event that should fittingly express the love and pride of the parents in their only daughter. Not more than two hundred guests were present, and they represented the officials of the Government and their families, the Army, Navy, and marine corps and their families, the diplomatic corps, and personal friends. The floral decorations of the house were superb, those of the East Room being the richest." In the autumn of 1874 Colonel Fred Grant took his bride, who was Miss Honore of Chicago, to the White House, and the President and Mrs. Grant gave them a very handsome wedding reception. The bridal couple remained for some time at the White House, and were elegantly entertained in Washington society. During the Hayes administration Miss Platt, a niece of the President's, was married to Dr. Russell Hastings, of St. Louis. This wedding was an exceptionally large and brilliant affair, and was more enjoyable than are White House weddings usually. Mrs. Hayes entertained a great many bridal couples during her life in Washington, most of them being relatives of hers or her husband's. The only silver wedding ever celebrated at the White House was that of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes. It occurred December 31, 1872, and the minister who united them was present to renew his pastoral blessing. The guests were, as far as possible, those who attended the wedding in 1852. A young relative and namesake of Mrs. Hayes, and two children of the President were baptized on this occasion. These were the first and only baptisms that have occurred in the White House. The Presidents of the United States were all married men excepting Buchanan and Cleveland. Now the name of the former will stand alone as the only bachelor President; and his administration will ever remain a unique one socially. The youthful Harriet Lane, his beautiful niece and adopted daughter, presided with queenly grace and exquisite tact, and was the admired belle of the nation. The administration of President Cleveland opened, as it was thought it would close, but he has surprised the public by his successful and creditable attempt

at matrimony. He will be remembered by posterity as the second President who married while in office.-New York Sun, May 30.

THE WIFE MARKET.-Readers of the daily newspapers occasionally run against items of news that almost stagger belief. It is a fact, however, that some of the most startling stories in the public prints are stric ly true. The unexpected is always happening, and there is no telling what will turn up next. We have found it difficult to believe that wives are bought and sold in even the darkest corners of this enlightened country, but gradually our doubts have yielded to the overwhelming weight of testimony. The most recent case is reported from Weathersfield, Conn. It seems that a wealthy old farmer in that place, a short time ago, advertised for a housekeeper. Twenty-five women answered at once. The old man ranged them in line, and, stopping in front of each, made an offer of marriage, tendering $2,000 as a temptation. To the credit of these poor women, the last one of them refused. The wife-hunter, in the course of a month, proposed to ever forty females, ranging in age from sixteen to sixty-seven. He raised his bid from $2,000 to $10,000, in special instances. Finally he closed a bargain with a wellseasoned widow for $11,000. The cash was paid and the merchandise was delivered. It is some consolation to know that the relatives of the old fool have had him arrested as a lunatic. But there are still worse cases. In New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio husbands sometimes sell and transfer their wives. Drink appears to be at the bottom of these sordid bargains, and they, of course, occur only in the lowest grade of society. The price paid by the Connecticut man seems wastefully extravagant compared with other prices quoted. One man sold his wife for a dollar and delivered the goods. Another was satisfied with a gallon of beer, but his spouse kicked and the trade fell through. This traffic is conducted in some of our large cities openly, and in a scarcely less revolting shape than it is in the slums. Among the papers sent to this office is a large pink-tinted sheet published in Chicago and rejoicing in the title of "Cupid's Quiver." It is a monthly, published, it states, "in connection with the Chicago Matrimonial Bureau." This paper contains thirteen columns of advertisements for wives and husbands. In every instance the party of the first part stipulates that the party of the second part must be possessed of some means, and some of the advertisers do not hesitate to name the amount of money required as the price of their affections. Is it not monstrous? Are we drifting to a point where a regular matrimonial market will be an established institution? If we do not check this disgraceful drift, we shall soon see "Cupid's Quiver" and journals of a like character publishing the regular quotations of the wife market, and classifying their stock, perhaps like cotton, as " fair, middling fair, good middling, middling, low middling, good ordinary, ordinary." In a country that tolerates Mormonism, and permits its loose divorce laws to be the scandal of the age, no sudden moral reform can be expected. It is to be feared that worse days are ahead.—Atlanta Constitution.

CURIOUS REPLIES.-An Arizona editor recently sent postal cards to all the prominent citizens of the place, requesting them to give an answer to the question: Why are you an honest man?" Some of the replies which he publishes are curious. One answers: "It must be because of my dern cussedness. I always did like to be different from other people." Another says he is honest because he never held any public office. Another indignantly answers: "What d'ye take me fer-an angel?" Another sarcastically remarks: "I suppose you are goin' to start a museum, and are lookin' fer freaks. Well, count nie out; I'm not one." Another, a professional labor agitator, wrote in blood-red ink on a postal-card: "What are ye givin' us?" While the editor of the opposition paper volunteered the answer that he scorned to lay bare the palpitating mainspring of a noble and honest soul at the request of a dishonest reptile and political parasite. The editor is so well pleased with the results of his inquiry that he intends soon to ask for answers to the question: "What do you take for a cold?"-Norfolk, Va., Land

mark.

RELIGIOUS.

THE CONGRESS OF CHURCHES.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 27.

THE second annual session of the Congress of American Churches is an occasion of great interest to all who have the welfare of the Christian churches of this land at heart, bringing together, as it has done, the represen'atives of so many forms of belief, all, however, imbubed with the same desire for union and harmony between them and for the promotion of better social relations as well as of religion and religious teaching throughout the land. It was fitting that in a meeting of this kind the opening address should be made by the governor of the State, who cordially welcomed them to Ohio whose people, he said, earnestly believed in Christian union. While they did not ever expect to see all denominations blended into one, they believed thoroughly in the idea that no matter in what church a man may worship all alike belong to the great cause and in a true sense to the church of God. At the present congress no less than twenty-three denominations were represented, including the Roman Catholic, for the first time, by the venerable Bishop Gilmour. In an assemblage comprising so many eminent theologians from all parts of the country as well as many conspicuous laymen, the subjects of discussion naturally covered a wide range. Yesterday's proceedings were rendered particularly interesting by the reading of a paper by the Rev. Dr. Daniel Curry, an eminent Methodist Episcopal clergyman of New York, who dealt with the question of creeds and religious beliefs in a manner that won the utmost attention of the large audience which heard him Dr. Curry freely recognized the fact that the whole.tendency of the present age is to sink mere dogmatic questions of theology as much as possible, but he is at the same time of opinion that the changes that are so strongly marked in the religious thought of the age, affect only remotely and

The

slightly the substance of Christian truth and are confined almost exclusively to forms of expression. God's revelations of Himself and of His dispensations, although always substantially the same, have become fuller and clearer. historical creeds were almost all of them materialistic, both in their forms of language and manifest conceptions respecting the future life. Dr. Curry thinks that the once popular notions respecting the resurrection of the dead and the character of the life everlasting which the old creeds would manifestly teach have ceased to command the assent of the great body of intelligent believers. He agrees with many other theologians in the opinion that a reconstruction of creeds is necessary, but pertinently asks who is to undertake the work and what is to be the form of the reconstructed faith of the church? There are many no doubt who are asking themselves such questions, but no answer is forthcoming. In the meantime we have Christian churches working under confessions of faith and declarations of doctrine which they no longer wholly accept, and which even their clergymen do not hold themselves obliged to believe unreservedly. Equally interesting and more practical were the discussions on the relations of the churches toward workinginen. It has been for a long time a subject of complaint among all the churches that they no longer reach the classes that should derive the most benefit from them, that they have become churches of the rich and not of the poor. This subject is being ventilated before the congress, and it is to be hoped its discussion will lead to a general awakening on the subject among all denominations of Christians and a more general recognition of the needs of the working classes.

Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 27.

THE very existence of the congress is an evidence of progress on the part of the churches. The fact that an eminent Roman Catholic bishop and a distinguished Universalist divine met on the same platform and followed each other in a temperate discussion of a burning question, like that of religion and the public schools, and that Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists and representatives of a wide range of religious denominations discussed earnestly the best methods of placing the Church as a whole in line with the advance of modern thought and modern social and industrial conditions, is one of the most striking signs of the times. The world does move, and in spite of frequent sneers it is plain that the Churches feel the motion and will not stand still. Those Churches or those ministers who refuse to recognize the necessity of progress will be pushed aside and left so far in the rear as to be soon wholly forgotten. Not the least of the benefits resulting from the congress is the better understanding the representatives of the different Churches now have of each other's position. A large amount of misunderstanding, misconception and prejudice has been removed by this common meeting and interchange of views. The Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian have shaken hands in a friendly way, exchanged opinions and discovered that they have so much in common that it is unwise and unchristian to virulently attack each other for the points of difference. The men who took part in the discussions of the present week are less likely to go back into their pulpits and hurl anathemas at each other than if they had never met. The most narrow-minded of them all must have been broadened and liberalized by meeting upon the common ground of Christian charity and Christian desire to help humanity socially and morally as well as spiritually. And the fact made manifest by this congress that the Churches recognize their duties to society outside of their close communions will do much toward attracting to them people who have been disposed to turn their backs upon the Churches, because they have had reason to believe that the Churches had little sympathy with them and their physical and social as well as spiritual needs. Ohio State Journal, May 29.

THIS Congress differs from other experiments that have been made in the direction of Christian union by welcoming to its platform "all who profess and call themselves Christians;" by refusing to formulate a creed or platform of opinions to which those who take part in its discussions must subscribe, and by bidding each man speak out, with the utmost frankness, his own deepest convictions. Other assemblies have tried to confine their debates to those truths in which Christians are agreed; this congress encourages and enjoins the most unreserved expression upon those points on which they differ. Of this liberty the speakers freely avail themselves, and the possession of this liberty puts every man on his good behavior, makes him generous, conciliatory and temperate in his statements, and keeps him from indulging a polemical temper.

Latin; in half a dozen triolets, such as rhymsters now use for vers de societe, is condensed the whole panorama of the judgment. It is related of La Fontaine that finding one of these ancient" proses," he was so impressed with it that for several weeks he could not forbear asking the court ladies of convenient virtue, who were his favorite associates, if they had read it. After a lifetime spent in writing rhymes to amuse these ladies, the Dies Ira came upon him in his old age, making a piteous spectacle of him. It was with ashes upon his hair, already grown gray in shamelessness, that he attempted a translation of the terrible Latin into French, succeeding only in reducing it to his own weakness. His attempt has been many times repeated by others with almost equal failure. The strength that adheres in the original adheres to it also and refuses to be conveyed away from it into other words. The equally well-known Stabat Mater was inspired by equal faith, but there is not the same genius of expression. With all its tender pathos it ranks far below the Dies Ira, which for centuries has held a place of its own in literature as a product of that high poetical imagination which gives substance to things hoped for and evidence of things unseen. Though the Roman Catholic ritual has done much in preserving and making familiar what is most poetical in the older devotional poetry, there is much uncollected and comparatively unknown. The rhymed Latin prayers are, many of them, rude; all of them are strong. They have an intensity which it seems no longer possible to force into words. Almost all that is known of St. Hilderpert is that he is the author of one of these. It has suggestions of Gethsemane in its agony; its prescience of the torture of the hellfurnace from which it entreats deliverance; though, with its tension of mental anguish, there is a minor key of hope in the refrain:

Jesus, light of David's city,
Thy cross saves us and thy pity.

It was in repeating one of these rhymed prayers that Mary, queen of Scots, laid her head upon the block, and her last breath is said to have been expended in the couplet : In duriscatenis, speravi in te;

O carime Jesu! nunc misera me.

-St. Louis Republican, May 30.

NOTES. The Universalist says "the best preaching is not that which says most, but that which suggests most."- -The Examiner says "there are difficulties in any theodicy, but none so full of insolvable problems as the one that places sin and righteousness on the same plane.' The following resolution is announced: "That the Western Unitarian Conference conditions its fellowship on no dogmatic tests, but welcomes all who wish to join it to help establish Truth, Righteousness and Love in the world.". -There is a Liberal Holland Church at Grand Rapids, Mich., -The which engaged a pastor for six years without having seen or heard him.American Unitarian Association raised during the current year something over $44,000 or $11,000 in advance of last year.- -The Anglo-Jewish Association is raising a special educational fund of £10,000 for foreign missions in the East, supporting the schools of the Alliance Israelite.- -Over a million pounds is still spent yearly in pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina. Many of the Mohammedan pilgrims travel immense distances. Thus nearly six thousand of them are from the Soudan and neighboring parts of Africa, 7,000 are Moors, 1,400 Persians, 16,000 Malays and Indians, and 25,000 Turks or Egyptians. These are the figures for the year 1885, when there were 53,010 pilgrims to these two famous shrines Rev. Dr. D. C. Marquis, of Chicago, was made presiding officer of the General Assembly of Presbyterian churches at Minneapolis.The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church South has formulated resolutions against the doctrine of evolution.Rt. Rev. T. A. Becker has been installed Bishop of the Roman Catholic See of Savannah, Ga.- -It is related of a popular clergyman, that he started a dull prayer-meeting, recently, by announcing that he "didn't propose to act as umpire for a sleeping match!"- -The Mormon interpretation of the New Testament is singular. St. Paul declares that a bishop should be the husband of one wife; but the Mormons insist that he intended to say that a bishop should be the husband of at least one wife, implying that if it is well to have one, it must logically be better to have two, while perfect official efficiency is attained when a man has a dozen or more. -The Christian Examiner hits a good many people in an article entitled "Joining a Pastor." It says they do not join the church. They "unite themselves" to the popular pastor. While he stays, they stay. When he goes, they scatter and hunt for the next popular pastor to join.- The next meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church will be held in Philadelphia, and it is recommended that the Church raise $5,000,000 as a thank-offering for its prosperous history. The 60th anniversary of the American Home Mission Society is held at Saratoga June 1, 3- -The Reformed Church Home Missionary treasurer has defaulted to the amount of $25,000.- -There are 40,430 Methodists in Kansas.- -Rev. Dr. Cuyler has been elected president of the National Temperance Society.- -The Dean of Chichester, Eng., has been suggesting to his clergy that, "until the Gladstone tyranny be overpast," a pause should be made after the words "and her dominions" in the prayer for the High Court of Parliament. The pause is to be made, the Dean explains, in order that the congregation may "dart up a prayer to God" to frustrate Mr. Gladstone's knavish tricks. Another clergyman, who has seen the suggestion, writes to the Pall Mall Gazette, saying that the proper place for a pause would be in the prayer for the bishops and clergy, in order that all sober-minded men may pray for forgiveness for all deans and others who have been led astray into using religion as a cloak for personal prejudice or political passion.- -The General of the Jesuits has published the statistics of the order, showing that it now counts 2,500 missionaries, and that it can boast of having had 248 saints, 1,500 martyrs, 13 popes, 60 cardinals, 4,000 archbishops and bishops, and 6,000 authors.- -Pittsburgh will have a new $160,000 Ursuline convent ready for dedication in September.The Catholics of Glendive, Montana Territory, have bought a Congregational church for their own -Archbishop Ryan has made public in his Cathedral, in Philadelphia, the position taken by the recent Council of Baltimore, relative to the sale of liquors on Sunday. He has announced that all Catholics in the Archdiocese must either abstain from selling intoxicants on Sunday or else leave the church. Should they disre

use.